The Boston Globe
The amendments, which handed the council on a 6-3 vote, mark one of many extra formidable native efforts to deal with the inexpensive housing disaster in Massachusetts.
The Cambridge Metropolis Council on Monday evening handed controversial modifications to town’s landmark inexpensive housing regulation, doubtlessly paving the best way for taller, denser inexpensive housing growth within the metropolis’s main squares and corridors.
The transfer, which handed the council on a 6-3 vote, marks one of many extra formidable native efforts to deal with the area’s housing disaster, going additional than insurance policies elsewhere in Massachusetts to bolster the event of deeply inexpensive models. Tasks which are comprised completely of inexpensive models will now be allowed to be as tall as 15 tales within the metropolis’s main squares, and tasks as tall as 12 tales on corridors like Massachusetts Avenue.
“On the finish of the day, there is no such thing as a magic wands, there [are] no fast fixes. There aren’t any silver bullets that can resolve our inexpensive housing disaster,” mentioned Councilor Denise Simmons, who supported the amendments. “However with instruments like [this], we’re creating alternatives for this critically wanted housing to be constructed — houses to be constructed.”
But it surely was not with out severe objection. Some metropolis councilors and residents raised concern that the modifications to the coverage, generally known as the inexpensive housing overlay, have been developed with out sufficient neighborhood enter, and that they might result in rampant growth of tall buildings throughout town.
It additionally raises the stakes of the upcoming metropolis council elections in November: a slate of candidates have cropped up in opposition of the council’s current efforts to speed up housing growth, and say the election will probably be one thing of a referendum on these insurance policies.
“That is Russian Roulette zoning,” mentioned Councilor Dennis Carlone, who opposed the amendments. “Nobody is aware of what web site goes to be bought. Whether or not it’s on Broadway, Cambridge Road… Nobody is aware of till the day it will get introduced. And to me that’s in opposition to what the precept of zoning is all about.”
The formidable new coverage and the controversy surrounding it spotlight simply how tense the controversy round housing has change into in Cambridge in recent times.
As tech and biotech growth has flourished over the previous couple of a long time, rents in Cambridge have climbed larger than some other metropolis in Massachusetts. The median lease for a one-bedroom condominium within the metropolis now sits at $2,750, in response to Zillow. Flats in new buildings fetch much more.
In one of many densest cities within the US, that presents a difficult downside, and piecemeal options like insurance policies that squeeze some inexpensive models out of market fee tasks, weren’t working properly sufficient, some mentioned.
The concept of the AHO, which was first handed in 2020, was to make sure zoning doesn’t get in the best way of inexpensive housing tasks that already face an array of each political and monetary hurdles. For the reason that authentic coverage went into impact, 616 models have been authorised in AHO tasks.
However there have been nonetheless some hurdles, like top limits and setback restrictions, which housing advocates hope the modifications will deal with. A number of councilors who supported the amendments cited one specific eight-story inexpensive venture close to Porter Sq. that failed final yr due to pushback from neighbors and the zoning board. Underneath the up to date coverage, the venture would’ve been allowed by-right.
Permitting tall tasks by-right, or with out particular approval from a zoning board, was one other large level of rivalry. Some councilors and residents argued that the particular approval course of is vital to moderating growth and guaranteeing that buildings match town’s character. A few of the metropolis’s nonprofit inexpensive housing builders, although, mentioned that course of will be lengthy and dear, oftentimes informing whether or not they suggest a venture on a sure lot in any respect. Making that work inside the confines of the financing construction for inexpensive housing, they mentioned, is extraordinarily tough.
In addition they contended that only a few 12 to fifteen story buildings will truly be constructed within the years to come back, as a result of they’re costlier to plan and assemble. Extra realistically, they mentioned, the tweaks to the coverage would lead to extra eight or 9 story buildings.
The amendments to the AHO add to a sequence of modifications to the best way land-use is ruled in Cambridge shepherded into regulation by a bunch of progressive metropolis councilors in recent times.
The November elections will characteristic 24 candidates vying for 9 seats, lots of whom have taken sides on the AHO and made their stance on the coverage a part of their marketing campaign.